A blog dedicated to my obsession with buying in the Sacramento housing market

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

March 2008 Asking Price Distribution

Below is the March 2008 update on Sacramento's progress toward affordable housing for your average family. We seem to be making some nice progress in the lower 50%. The upper 50% doesn't seem to be budging much, but I have a feeling their day will come. After all, a 10% decline on a $1,000,000 home is $100,000, compared to $20,000 on a $200,000 home. While the percent is the same, the actual $$ pain is more acute on the higher end.Once again, this is a very unscientific data set, gathered from Zip Realty's website (the mapping function) for all home types (SFH, condo, multi family).

I looked at a few properties that were S/S or REOs in West Sacramento that were possibly going on the maybe list. Then I checked what they paid last year on taxes. If I were to purchase one, the taxes including MR fees and HOA would come to just under $600! This would be 23% of the monthly P&I just in taxes! Sure I could argue that the taxes should come down based on decling value but never depend on winning a fight with city hall is my motto.

I have zero sympathy for the city having to absorb the costs and loosing tax revenue for the declining market. They allowed the developers rope them into a communities that were doomed to fail from the beginning.